The invention is a safety device used to prevent a practitioner of an aquatic sport of platform diving from injury caused by unanticipated or unwanted contact with a part of the platform after clearing the surface of the platform and commencing the inertial phase of the dive or another skill.
In the sport of platform diving, after commencement of the dive, the athlete is in free fall movement and has limited control of the dive trajectory. A miscalculation on the part of the athlete (resulting for instance in insufficient horizontal speed away from the platform at the moment of the take-off) can result in a part of the athlete's body coming into unwanted or unanticipated contact with the platform. Such contact may result in an injury to the body of the athlete.
A method and apparatus of preventing altogether or reducing the severity of the injury to the athlete's body in the above described situation is invented and described in this patent application.